Hancock and Claessens club together for Lotus 6 Hour win

Sam Hancock and Michael Claessens’ Track Club 3 team won the Lotus 6 Hour race at Brands Hatch on Saturday 9 November, having led the majority of the distance from pole position.

Unlike his team mate, Claessens had very little racing experience but despite dropping to third place, had the consistency to take advantage when their rivals dropped out.

The Track Club 4 team, consisting of Ginetta regulars Nathan Freke and Jamie Orton, and the Go Green Motorsport squad of David and Rob Fenn plus Adam Wilcox both took turns to lead the race before falling by the wayside. Orton’s stint ended with back problems that left him unable to continue, and with each driver restricted to a maximum of two hours at the wheel, the team were forced to retire the car from first place at half distance. Meanwhile Go Green, last year’s race winners, succumbed to water pump failure soon afterwards. This left Track Club 2’s Adam Knight and Adam Balon in second place and a fight for the final podium position between CAST and Fox Motorsport.

CAST’s Jack Goff was being chased by Fox’s Jamie Stanley in the final hour, but BTCC newcomer Goff pitted with just half an hour to go and smoke from the engine bay signalled an agonising retirement. Thus Stanley plus team mates Paul McNeily and BJ Chong completed the podium.

The Elise Trophy class for production cars was won by polesitters Adam Gore and Jason Baker, running under the Rob Boston Racing banner. Alternator problems for Gore forced the team to send out Baker early on, taking advantage of the class’s relay format. However they were back in the lead of the category by the end of the first hour, and a solid run for ES Motorsport saw Dave Carr and Matthias Radestock join them on the podium. A late charge from former Lotus F1 driver Martin Donnelly earned third place for his Martin’s Angels team, alongside co-drivers Charlotte Burridge and Gisella Ketvel.

The race was held in honour of last year’s polesitter Sean Edwards, and a tribute was held to him on the grid. The Hofmanns Europa that he raced last year was liveried in his helmet colours and the front row of the grid was left empty as a mark of respect.